First ride with the Nite Rider

This Ride: 23.0 miles
Kona Distance: 2,589.1 miles
Month to date: 250.2 miles
2010 Total: 3,055.5 miles
Pace to 5,254.8 mile goal in 2010: (57.6 miles ahead of goal pace)

The new headlight arrived yesterday. I picked it up, charged it, then tried to find a place for it on my bike. That wasn’t easy. I have a small, compact bike to fit my small compact body and I like information. On the front of my bike before the new headlight was a headlight, a Garmin, a Cateye manual bike computer, and on the frame itself a bag in which my iPhone will fit, as well as some other items (food, ecaps, wallet, etc.). I know, too much stuff. The Nite Rider headlight required some reconfiguration of the “dashboard” since I need some place to put my hands. The old headlight was a given, but there was no way to attach the battery pack without other compromises. Goodbye Cateye. I really liked having a back up to the Garmin. It was great for following Cue sheets and it easily displayed the time and distance at a glance. I have a simpler “cockpit” now, with just the headlight, Garmin, and bag. The way my riding is progressing, the bag may not last much longer either.

I woke up early this morning, anxious to see how well the Nite Rider worked. It has three settings, 350, 180, & 100 Lumen output with 2:15, 4:00, 9:00 run times, respectively. Naturally, I ran it on high for the first part of the ride, attempting to blind any motorists, and once it was light, brought it back down to low, just to assist in being seen. The light was bright enough to even out the streetlight shadows and to see the trail comfortably at 20 mph. It isn’t the bright monsters that Dave (600-700 Lumens) or Mike (1200 Lumens) have, but I think I will ride comfortably with this light, and it cost less than half what those lights do. If I upgrade, I can always mount this one on the helmet.

I was out about 15 minutes earlier on the trail and was amazed at the activity, and even more amazed at some of the riders. One guy was flying north on the trail with no reflectors, no rear blinky light, and no headlight. This was 45 minutes before sunrise. He looked irritated to me, and no doubt his night vision was ruined by headlights. Never-the-less, he was very hard to see.

In all the excitement over testing out the headlight, I forgot to turn on the Garmin until at least 7 miles into the ride. That’s too bad. I had a pretty fast morning. The last 15 miles averaged 17.7 mph. My middle 5 mile “lap” (mostly B&A Blvd) averaged 19.3. All the miles were solo. On the trail I saw Alex grinding out his way north to meet up with the SPP group. It looked like there were only 3 riders in that group this morning. I met them near the south end of the trail as I was coming north. I took the same route they take back, but they never caught me.

It was a very warm and humid morning. By the end of the ride my sweatband had become saturated and no longer could handle the moisture coming off my head.

I must do some bike maintenance today. The chain has been neglected for too long. I need to tighten everything up. This bike is getting noisy.

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I found last winter that from late Nov – February I was logging >50% of my mileage in the dark. By the end of the winter I was getting stronger, and faster, and concluded my 200 Lumen light was just a little shy of what I really wanted / needed. If I had selected a light comparable to the one you just got, I suspect I would have opted to stick with it for another year.

Since I had to upgrade anyway, I took advantage of a sale price and went big. I expect you’ll find the one you just got will serve you well for at least a couple of years.